


Demons don't babysit

by soulofaminaanima



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: AU, Babysitting, Cheleanor baby, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Michael doesn't actually hate children, Season/Series 03, child oc, he's just very careful around them, while on earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 01:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17633492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofaminaanima/pseuds/soulofaminaanima
Summary: “Maybe… Jason?”“Are you seriously suggesting ‘Mr-I-ate-a-whole-bag-of-bird-seed-because-it-smelled-good’ to look after my kid?” Eleanor deadpanned.“You can’t expect me to do this for you!” Michael points towards himself as if that explains enough. Eleanor sighs “I’m sorry Michael, but it’s an emergency and you’re my only option right now. I know you kind of hate children, but this is Mira, you’re basically her stepfather.”--Or, a very self-indulgent fic about a demon babysitting a child for the first time. Lots of Michael thoughts and fluff.





	Demons don't babysit

“Why not Chidi? Where’s that guy anyway, aren’t Fridays ‘papa-days’, or something?”

“They are, but we made a switch in our schedules, since Chidi has a professor over from out of town. He’s in the middle of a meeting about ‘the virtues of lying and something something’, or maybe I don’t remember the extremely long name of a very specific lecture, but you get my gist.”

 

“Okay, what about Tahani? Can’t she do it?”

“Tahani’s at a fundraiser all around the world. By the time she’ll be back, I’ll be loooong fired. And don’t suggest Janet, because she’s with Tahani in London. You do know that right? We sent them on their plane just last week.”

 

“Maybe… Jason?”

“Are you seriously suggesting ‘Mr-I-ate-a-whole-bag-of-bird-seed-because-it-smelled-good’ to look after my kid?” Eleanor deadpanned.

“You can’t expect _me_ to do this for you!” Michael points towards himself as if that explains enough. Eleanor sighs “I’m sorry Michael, but it’s an emergency and you’re my only option right now. I know you kind of hate children, but this is _Mira_ , you’re basically her stepfather.”

 

Michael mumbles something about not actually hating kids, but his point is quickly disproven when the demon literally jumps away when Eleanor tries to hand over her daughter. She raises a single eyebrow at the cowering form of her friend.

 

“I’m literally begging you, Michael. I really like this job and I don’t want to mess this up, so if you could stay with Mira, just for an hour or two. Or three, maybe four. I’ll buy you frozen yogurt afterwards, heck, I’ll even buy you that ‘How it’s made’ book about dishwashers you were gushing about. Please, I just don’t know who else to turn to.”

 

Eleanor knows she’s won when the demon’s shoulders drop. He steps closer towards the two so Eleanor can place the toddler in his arms. Mira immediately catches a lapel of Michael’s suit in her tiny hands, sucking on a pacifier and staring at her mom with those big brown eyes of hers. Chidi’s eyes.

 

He’d babysat before and held Eleanor’s daughter before, but that was always with at least one human in the room. Now Michael was going to be the sole responsible adult for Mira for the next few hours. Eleanor claimed it was ‘only for an hour’ of clocking in, but Michael knew her job and her demanding boss. Eleanor wouldn’t be coming home until six.

 

 “You know where we keep the clean diapers?” The mother asks, while she’s rummaging through the pile of shoes, looking for her working pair.

 

“In the left drawer.” Michael answers without pause. He knows at least that much about parenting in the Anagonye-Shellstrop household. Mira’s almost one year old and they’ve all been over many times before and everyone’s gotten used to the newest family member. It’s almost like Mira had always been there.

 

“And her dinner food?” Eleanor continues.

“In the fridge, heating is 15 seconds in increments.” Michael mumbles while he bounces the baby in his arms. Mira laughs at him and tries to make a grab for his glasses – she’s been doing that a lot lately, according to Chidi. He shifts her around so his glasses are out of range and Mira switches her attention to the next best target: his bowtie.  

 

“Yes, and you check the heat by…?”

 

“Stirring the food and holding it against your own lip.” That was the human variant of making sure no foods were served too hot. Michael and Janet only had to look at a plate to know the exact temperature, but Janet told him to still check it in the human way too. It kept the parents at ease.

 

“And what can Mira not do?” Michael frowns, he doesn’t know the answer to that question. “..Eat uncut grapes?” he guesses. He’d read several books on parenting and young children – in secret, of course – but no direct answer came to mind.

“Among other things. Do you remember the list Chidi wrote down for Jason? “Do no leave Mira unsupervised:…”

 

Ah, now Michael remembered. Even though the list was created for Jason, he’d found it very helpful too, so he recited the list from memory: “Do not leave Mira unsupervised near the stairs, the sofa, any other high places, open fire, the pool, with cables, with small parts she can choke on, in a car, in any public place,-“

 

“See, you’ve got this, man!” Eleanor cuts him off. She’s already putting on her coat and looking for her bag and Michael immediately starts freaking out again. Eleanor was really going to leave Mira in his care. And she didn’t mind that this was literally the worst plan ever, leaving a toddler with a demon! It should’ve been the first point on Jason’s list: do no leave Mira unsupervised with Michael.

 

Eleanor couldn’t see his stress kick in like that, she was only human after all and didn’t have the vision to see the cortisol race through his brain. The woman gave her daughter a kiss on her nose, waved them both goodbye and stepped out.

 

The silence she left in her wake was awful and Michael deeply regretted agreeing to this babysitting job. He bounced little Mira once more before moving back to the living room. Eleanor and the other humans might not know it, but Michael didn’t actually hate children. At first, the thought of Chidi and Eleanor having a baby had sounded a bit weird, but he contemplated that that was just what humans did sometimes.

 

But disliking children? Michael couldn’t do that when the child on his arm was basically the cutest thing he’d ever seen. Never, even before getting these four for his neighbourhood and joining them on earth, had Michael disliked children.

 

Before… all of this, he’d visited a few Bad Place neighbourhoods designed for children. Even back then, he’d wondered how a literal child with no idea of good or bad could end up with them in the bad place. It should’ve been a dead giveaway that there was something wrong with the point system. But the old Michael had only dropped his gaze whenever he visited those places.

 

The Michael now, was very a different person. There was no doubt that he would walk through hell – literally – for this little girl and her family. He only wanted the very best for Eleanor and Chidi’s daughter. And if keeping away meant this young girl could grow up without any negative or dangerous influences from demons, he would do it.

 

“What to do next, Mira..” He mumbles. Mira gave a tiny splutter as an answer and Michael admitted that that did light up his anxious mood a little bit. He could be on his best behaviour, be a polite and reformed demon. So play-time it was.

 

***

 

Mira’s a very good crawler, but she refuses to do any work if she could just wave her tiny arms in a direction and one of the humans would get her what she wanted. Janet and Jason were both competing for the role of ‘favourite retrieval dog’. Janet never stopped wanting to care for people and Jason just loved playing fetch with the many toys Mira throws around. If it was up to these two, Mira would never learn to do anything herself.

 

Michael was very much aware of this little trick the baby played on the others – being a master trickster himself – and did not fall for it. Mira was placed on one of these colourful blankets with a small collection of toys and a favourite stuffed rabbit nearby.

 

Mira’s hand immediately reaches out for the rabbit, but her head turns towards Michael. She patiently waits for him to get the toy for her, but Michael won’t have that. He steps around the toys and sits himself next to the stuffed rabbit.

 

“Come on Mira, I know you can crawl! Don’t you want this soft little rabbit?” Michael holds the rabbit in front of his face, flopping the long ears around in a way that will hopefully lure the baby into crawling. He makes his voice sound soft and higher than usual, something that he’s been copying from Tahani.

 

Michael knows that Eleanor would give him shit for the voice, but he’s worked very hard on it. No demon in this universe worked harder on acting like an human and sometimes Michael thinks he’s no longer acting at all.

 

Mira gives him a pout, but it works: she easily crawls towards him, as if she’s showing off in a way. _Of course I can crawl, why do you adults keep making such a fuss about it?_

***

 

Mira had been fascinated by table foods for a long time now, especially anything sweet and fruity. Mashed banana, apple sauce and many of the mixed baby foods. The adults had trouble feeding her anything less sweet, but Michael understood the girl. If he had to eat the ‘mashed broccoli-potato party’ from the store every day, he’d throw a tantrum at dinner too.

 

Today, a mix of carrot puree and sweet potatoes was on the menu. Michael steadily heated the food while Mira happily sputtered away at the table. She was wearing her frog bib in case of spilling foods – which happened all the time. The frog bib had been a present, but Michael had forgotten none of them had ever met The Doorman with his obsession of frogs. Therefore nobody in their little family had gotten his joke.

 

Inside jokes weren’t as fun when you had nobody to share them with.

 

The frog reference hadn’t been the first time he’d forgotten the humans and Janet did not know everything he knew. Eleanor, of course, knew about reboot 119, but when Michael had asked the others if they wanted to know more about the three hundred years they missed, none of them stepped forward.

 

Michael should’ve been happy with their decision, it kept them from finding out about all the things he did to torture them, but it also created this weird imbalance. He knew everything about them, from their favourite colour to their weird fantasies. Yet, they didn’t remember any of the lessons Chidi gave them in his neighbourhood, or the things that they’d done for him there. The things that had gotten him to change into a better person.

 

None of his jokes were reciprocated: suggesting Chidi should get an owl as a pet, or reminding Tahani that she could always wear crocs and cargo pants to that fundraiser. Maybe they were stupid jokes, but these little moments still gave the demon a feeling of nostalgia.

 

He would never say it out loud, but sometimes Michael missed the neighbourhood and the friendship they built there. Of course, he liked the way things were on Earth, but it wasn’t the same. Maybe it made him a little bit homesick, which didn’t even make sense! He had all his friends right here and there was nothing missing at all. Yet..

 

Michael is abruptly torn from his musings as something loudly crashes to the floor behind him. In an instant, he’s back standing over at the table, finding Mira still safely in her baby chair. Thank the good place it wasn’t her that fell to the floor.

 

Instead, Mira’s Sippy cup and plastic spoon lie next to Michael’s foot. “You think that’s funny, Mira?” He asks, hands on his hips. Michael tries to sound serious, but fails miserably, judging by Mira’s happy smile.

 

“I think you’re the sweetest kid in the world, but sometimes you scare me more than any demon ever could.”

 

Placing the cup and spoon back on the table – out of reach – and grabbing the now microwaved sweet potatoes, Michael starts the never ending battle of feeding a little child.  And if he turns the whole thing in a game of imaginary carrot airplanes and sweet potato trains, no one would know.

 

***

 

It was a quarter past seven when the two parents of the little girl finally returned. Mira had enjoyed her dinner, changed into her pyjama’s and was just falling asleep.

 

The girl was too young to understand bedtime stories, so Chidi and Eleanor usually read her a wide scale of books that they themselves liked. ‘Sophie’s world’ must’ve been Chidi’s pick and Michael had started at the first chapter, not wanting to move the bookmark and knowing that Mira wouldn’t care about the story anyway. She just liked the sound of humans talking to her in silly voices, so Michael made sure to make Sophie’s voice higher than his normal tenor sound.

 

Mira fell asleep before he’d finished the first chapter, so Michael stopped reading out loud. He didn’t want to move to the living room just yet, so Eleanor found him in the nursing room, flipping through the book.

 

“How did it go?” She whispers while she tiptoes further into the room. He nods at her once, not knowing how to describe the day. Would it be bad to be proud about the fact he hadn’t dropped Mira?

The mother peeks over the edge of crib, watching the sleeping form of the girl. Michael watches as a content smile appears on Eleanor’s face.

 

Chidi slowly makes his way into the room, still fully dressed in professor mode, with his bag slung over his shoulder. Eleanor too, is wearing her working’s clothes, with her hair held up in a messy bun. “Thanks man,” Chidi whispers “I knew we could count on you.”

 

“Let me guess, you were worrying the whole ride back home?” Michael asks.

 

“…yes.” The professor answers truthfully. A grin appears on Eleanors face: “I didn’t tell him who was on babysitting duty until we were halfway home, so it wasn’t the _whole_ ride. Plus, I knew we could count on you to hold the fort down. ”

 

Michael smiles at that. “Well, she’s a good kid, so it wasn’t too much trouble.” He places the book back on it’s original spot and slowly moves out of the chair, still mindful of the sleeping girl. He’s almost through the door, wanting to give the parents some time to themselves, but Eleanor holds him back. “So does that mean you wouldn’t mind babysitting again?”

 

“Well… If you two ever want a night off, or if something comes up, I wouldn’t mind it.”


End file.
